That Trump said this is both shocking and completely in character (boldface mine):

Weeks after a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed in a covert mission in Yemen, Trump has resisted accepting responsibility for authorizing the mission and the subsequent death of Senior Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens.

In an interview with Fox News that aired Tuesday morning, Trump said the mission “was started before I got here.”

He noted that the operation was something his generals “were looking at for a long time doing.”

“This was something that was, you know, just – they wanted to do,” Trump said. ” And they came to see me and they explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected.”

“And they lost Ryan,” Trump continued.

…But never did Trump acknowledge his responsibility as the senior-most leader in the United States military chain of command in authorizing the operation.

Just like the addict’s primary goal is to get that fix, the narcissist’s primary goal is to maintain the fantasy. They will construct elaborate mechanisms to deny unpleasant realities…

The dishonest climate is another massive problem. Problems will fester and multiply because the narcissist doesn’t want to hear about them–the show must go on. Then things reach a crisis point, as the lies collapse on each other. At this point, the narcissist swings into paranoia and rage. Why did all of these awful people lie to me? (Can’t imagine why…). Then the impulsiveness kicks in. Needless to say, this isn’t the optimal environment for crisis management. So if you care about the goals of the organization, the narcissist boss is often the largest impediment. This too is soul-crushing.

A man like Trump is incapable of taking responsibility for his actions: it is always someone else’s fault. This is not a ‘political’ strategy, or an attempt to dodge blame–lots of people do that, at least occasionally. Psychologically, he can’t face the reality that he fucked up. He needs to blame the generals, to blame everyone but himself.

This doesn’t affect policy, but those in media must realize that he’s not going to change or ‘evolve.’ He won’t learn from his mistakes because, at a very fundamental level, he doesn’t believe they’re his mistakes. He is unable to and can’t believe that. What you see is what we’re going to get.

Ah. You feel Pence is a theocrat. And therefore since he is competent his God plans will be far worse. I should have reread my comment before responding.

I disagree, though. Not that he is in any way my ideal. But he is a politician by trade. A politician is a public servant. And a politician is always aware that all actions are compromises. That they are not living in a monolithic whole of agreement.

Also, Pence understands the basic premises of leadership. Get your needed pillars of support around you.
Trump’s first acts were to antagonize the spy agencies and the military. He continues to do that and he’s already paying the price. But while that may be fun to watch in the short term it is a fools dream to suppose that that the security agencies in this country don’t own more power than anyone else. And as Putin so cleverly reminded us, they can very easily manipulate the government and the elections.

It would not be all that hard for the security agencies to put a puppet in as POTUS. And that is worse than Trump.

Pence is a competent leader who will no doubt do many things I will scream a lot about and fight hard. But I seriously doubt he will inadvertently start a war or change the entire fabric of our country by antagonizing security agencies.

Fair enough. I’m still worried more about a competent hard-right conservative agenda uniting around environmental deregulation, tax breaks to those with fiscal power, reining in civil rights, defunding health care, faith-basing our public education system etc. than I am about a military coup in the US or WWIII. Our government is staffed by good civil servants and patriots. Government can survive a village idiot running the show and, who knows, maybe we’ll be better off realizing that substance in elections matters. On the other hand, Progressive, and even Moderate, government will be severely harmed for years by a competent and united far-right.

It’s definitely a rock and hard place.
But the right wing agenda is going through in either case. The GOP legislature is dead set on running their play, no matter how stupid it is. And they will get it. 2 years is plenty of time to fuck things royally.